Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The Mess I Call Chili

It rained last night and the Japanese maple has pearls of water hanging from each point of its leaves. I love when it rains, but the sky is clearing and it looks like it's going to be blue.

I'd rather have the low clouds and a misty rain.

I don't have much to tell you today. I haven't slept enough and when I don't sleep, it affects everything about my day, including what I tell you. I always feel as though I'd bore you to tears if I sat down and told you about how incredibly tired I was.

I'm incredibly tired. Lunch is made for Nick, chili with beans and corn, Stouffer's macaroni and cheese, cucumbers, milk, and one of those little tangerines that peels in one piece. Mike started putting extra stuff in our chili until I'm not sure you can call it chili any more, except we do. It's one of those easy meals, meat, chili mix, sliced olives, corn, kidney beans, elbow macaroni and diced tomatoes. I'm tempted to take the meat out of it altogether. Does that sound like chili to you?

It's not, is it? It's more of a goulash, but we already have two recipes named goulash in our family, so that name is taken.

So whatever. It's chili. I add onions and cheese to mine and Nick's bowls and extra diced tomatoes to mine and Mike's. What I need to do next is to keep the elbow macaronis separated out for Mike and Nick to have so that I don't have to eat them. Oh, I like them. They just don't like me.

I'm telling you, there must be something in the water because each of us has his own kind of food restrictions. It's a mess, but it's our mess and we're managing okay these days.

Isn't it funny how each of us has his own mess to deal with? One friend lost a son to leukemia. Another has problems with a son on drugs. One of Nick's friends had surgery over spring break, but his mom won't say what because it's, apparently, embarrassing. And another friend is getting a divorce. Our mess used to be pneumonia, sleep deprivation, food restrictions and a heart attack. We still have the scars, but mostly it's food restrictions these days. Once in a while, there's someone who's life seems so easy, so rich, and so beautiful, that I forget that there is always some struggle though I am not allowed to see it.

Sorry this is a rambling mess. I was trying to tell you about the mess I call chili.

Thank you for listening, jb

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